Monday, March 11, 2013

Ice Cream Recipe

Chocolate Ice Cream Recipe

As I sit down to write this, I have to tell you that the littlest Beach House Brat and I have just polished off that slice of chocolate ice cream down there. I am inspired, so very inspired because it was gorgeous. I have been feeling a bit blah about this blog lately, but this post is different and I am very passionate about it.....here's why.

I have loads more energy now my littlest is 4 years old. I have reapplied to teach a couple of days a week as one such example of how that energy is being harnessed. Another way is that I have become more vigilant about the additives and preservatives I am putting in my, but primarily my kids' mouths. One such bug bear for me is ice cream. Have you read the back of the carton lately? It is full of so much rubbish. The flavoured yoghurts are the same. Actually the lies in Australian labeling have really got to me lately. So I am mildly proud that I managed to make this terrific chocolate ice cream, using real food and that it tastes fantastic. I couldn't wait to share it with you. I guess it gave me a buzz like in my early days of blogging and that felt good.

Recently, I put my anger about all the seemingly unnecessary additives in food and misleading labeling out there on my personal face book page. I got a whole lot of great advice about some fabulous resources. A friend from my mothers' group suggested I watch an American documentary called Food Inc. Another friend from primary school, whom I haven't seen for 30 years, commented she had seen the film and it had changed her life.

Mr Beach House, God love him, responded to my request as he ventured out the door in last weekend's heinous weather to the video store and rented it for me. It's the little thing people.

Here's the trailer to Food Inc. if you want a hint of what is happening to your food. I highly recommend this film. Even Mr Beach House is talking about it and believe me, it is unusual for him to be moved about anything other than sailing.

The movie got me thinking more and more about the kinds of food I ate as a kid. Accordingly, I remembered this fantastic chocolate ice cream my mum used to make back in the 70's and 80's at her famous dinner parties, when our food was closer to nature.

I dug out the recipe and changed it up a bit.

Now this is not diet food, it is sometimes food, but it is made from mainly whole foods and it tastes delicious.
It's soooooo much better for you than store bought ice cream and flavoured yoghurts too. Even dark chocolate has antioxidants in it. It was so quick and easy to make, you don't need an ice cream maker and I encourage you to take 30 minutes out of your day to give this a go. If you are serving it to guests for dessert, you make it the day before, so that has to be a bonus. I guarantee if you make this Beach Dwellers, you will be praised to the hills and back.

Whip the cream until soft peaks form. Gently fold in the yoghurt and sugar. Melt the chocolate according to the directions on the pack and fold into the yoghurt mixture.
Add the vanilla, walnuts and raisins.
Pour the mixture into a non stick cake loaf tin. I gave mine a light spray of olive oil, but it's probably not necessary. My mum would not have done that.
Cover with foil and leave in the freezer over night for best results.
Any time before serving, but no later than one hour beforehand, put some hot tap water in your sink and place the loaf tin into the water for 1-2 minutes, so the sides of the tin are in contact with the water. Be careful not to let the water come into contact with the ice cream. Turn out your ice cream log onto an oblong plate, by placing the plate on top of your tin and inverting. Refreeze the log before serving dressed with fruit of your choice.
The ice cream is very rich, so you only need a small amount. The tartness of the strawberries was a fantastic compliment to it's richness, or so Mr Beach House said.

Oh and you may be querying how I got my hands on so many strawberries. I picked up 15 punnets for $8 (yep that's about 55c a punnet) at Harris Farm Markets and that is 2 weeks in a row now I have purchased them at this price. The shop assistant told me a big supermarket had boycotted the grower of these strawberries, due to a bad batch they had received a few weeks ago from him, so Harris Farm were "helping him out".......Interesting!!!!!!

I have to tell you these strawberries were fine....nothing wrong with them at all.

The poor farmer is probably going broke real quick at these prices. Or maybe Harris Farm is. I wonder is that the price supermarkets buy strawberries per punnet from the grower? Perhaps Harris Farm was selling them at cost, just to keep the farmer going, who knows. But we may find the answer to this kind of thing real soon. because there's a new consumer show coming to the ABC. The Checkout from the Chaser team starts on March 21.

That looks absolutely amazing and I am going to make it soonest! And I love what you write about nasty additatives etc etc I need to remember that at the moment as I'm busy and feeding the kids too much crappola.

But its' chicken and corn soup for dinner tonight with wholegrain bread. Tick.

I often make creamy desserts for the kids, well once a week or so. They never stop moving so burn off the calories and I prefer to make desserts for them usually. This ice cream is tops as it has heaps more yoghurt than cream... and chocolate is good for us!!

Your ice cream turned out really well. I can't believe the price of those strawberries and I certainly hope the farmer covered his costs AND made some money - that is the idea! I feel very sorry for farmers in this country. They have it so tough. I saw that Food Inc documentary and it's horrifying. I think if I went to the USA I would only eat organic; everything else would be off-limits xx

What a great buy I love strawberries, wish I could get some at that price- they are all around $5 a punnet here at the moment!My tip is to become friends with your local green grocer and he will look after you well, like the other day when I bought a big bag of potatoes, he gave me the special price that he was going to sell them at the following week because he didn't want me to pay too much!

Hi Carolyn, I am a regular reader, but this is my first comment. I've felt this way about food for many years (probably since I had my children). I have resigned to the fact that if you want good, wholesome food, you need to make it yourself or choose very wisely. One thing that has become easy, however, is shopping. I can now bypass 90% of the products on supermarkets shelves as I won't buy anything that contains any questionable additives. In fact most of my trolley contains fresh ingredients. Yes I do cook a lot, but the health of my family is definitely worth the extra work. You've got to wonder why our population is getting sicker and sicker, but I guess there's no money in good health! Caroline xx

Hi Caroline Thanks for joining in. Yes most things boil down to $$$$ and you do have to query all the dietary related disease currently. I query why food allergies (particularly concerning nuts and dairy)never seemed to be an issue when we were kids and now so many of my friends kids are sufferers.

I put a things back onto the shelves from my trolley this morning, things I have regularly bought, due to all the numbers on the back of the pack. It's all about shelf life and increasing profits. Consumer health seems way down the list of priorities for some of the food companies.

Not until us consumers vote at the checkout will our food change for the better.Carolyn

something i'm passionate about.. like caroline i miss most of the aisles at the supermarket. i'm buying more at health food shops and smaller greengrocers. you're a great cook.. the ice cream looks amazing!x

Mmmmm, that ice cream looks so good! I love anything pure and natural and can't stand all the preservatives either. I had heard of Food Inc. but put off watching it for a while as sometimes it's hard to face reality. I finally did watch it a while back and it was informative and hard to watch at the same time.

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About Me

Hi I'm Carolyn coming to you from a sweet little beach house on Sydney's Northern Beaches. Desire Empire is my passion and I love all things vintage, interiors, food, travel and family. Come and join me on my journey in paradise.